Liraglutide significantly improved glucose tolerance, body weight, and other cardiometabolic disturbances in clozapine- or olanzapine-treated patients who have disorders on the schizophrenia spectrum, according to research presented at the American Diabetes Association 77th Scientific Sessions, held June 9-13 in San Diego, California.

Although patients with schizophrenia have higher mortality rates compared with the background population (primarily caused by cardiovascular disease), interventions seeking to counteract antipsychotic-induced weight gain and cardiometabolic disturbances have had limited success. As a result, Louise Vedtofte, of Gentofte Hospital, Københavns Universitet, in Copenhagen, Denmark, and colleagues investigated the effects of glucagon-like peptide-1 liraglutide in obese/overweight patients with prediabetes and schizophrenia spectrum disorders on stable treatment with clozapine or olanzapine.

In a 16-week, placebo-controlled double-blind trial of 103 patients randomly divided into comparable groups, the researchers gave 1.8 mg/d of liraglutide to participants (6 dropped out). Glucose tolerance improved with liraglutide (P <.001) compared with no change with placebo (P =.95; between group P <.001).

There has been a question of whether antipsychotic medications are truly acting upon "primary" negative symptoms, or whether they are instead improving "secondary" negative symptoms via improvement in positive or ...